The roast pig makes delicious eating, and Bomba did not neglect the unexpected gift that had come his way. It offered an agreeable change from the dried meat on which he had expected to dine. So he cut a steak from the choicest part, roasted it over a fire of twigs, and soon was feasting on a dish that kings might envy.
How he wished that Frank Parkhurst was with him to share the feast! Before he had met with the white people he had been lonely, but he had not so keenly sensed his loneliness. Now it was ever present with him.
The friendship he had formed with Frank was the most precious thing that had so far come into Bomba’s starved life—except, perhaps, the meeting with the woman of the golden hair, Frank’s mother.
It had made still more deep and strong the urge that was on him to hold fellowship with his kind. For he was white—as white as Frank himself. Yet fate had thrown the two boys into environments that were as widely separated as the poles.
Chicago, Frank had called the city in which he lived. Bomba wondered whether he would ever see that strange and wonderful city or others like it, wondered if he would always have to spend his life in the jungle, with none save Casson and a few natives for his friends, to none of whom he could speak of the longings that obsessed him, of the aspirations that seemed doomed forever to be thwarted.
He spoke to himself half aloud:
“I am not as well off as the beasts and reptiles of the jungle. They live together and have plenty of their own kind. They do not hunt and live alone as I do. The monkeys gather in flocks, the wild peccaries hunt in droves. Even the big cats, the hungry jaguars, have their companions. Why am I, Bomba, always alone? I do not belong here in the jungle, which is the only place I know. And I cannot go to the wonderful world where Frank and other boys and many people live and laugh and slap each other on the back. Where do I belong? Where is there a place for me?”
But nothing answered that desolate cry that came from the very depths of the boy’s heart.
However, Bomba soon aroused himself from these unhappy musings. A certain oppression and unusual stillness in the jungle warned him that a storm was imminent. In the distance he could hear faintly the rumbling of thunder.
He girded himself and resumed his journey, his heart heavy, but his body refreshed and strengthened by the hearty meal he had eaten. For some time he had failed to pick up any direct clues of those he was pursuing. But he was now reasonably sure of the direction they had taken and pressed confidently forward.